Pie, Apple, Peach or Rhubarb

Prepare a tart paste (No. 149). Cut into quarters six or eight very ripe apples or fine, tender peaches; range them in layers in a pie dish, besprinkle with sugar, and dress them in a dome form. Wet the edges of the dish and cover it with a band of the paste, half an inch wide by an eighth of an inch in thickness; wet this band also with a fine brush, and cover the fruits and this band with a rolled-out flat of the same paste; press it down on the base of the dome, and then on the band, so as to have the two adhere. Cut the paste even with the edge of the dish, and scallop it all around with a small knife, pressing the paste heavily with the left thumb, and cutting it at short intervals from the bottom to the top to raise the gash slightly, so that when cooking the paste will rise in relief. Brush over the top with water, and decorate with a few fanciful cuts of the same paste, then egg the surface with beaten eggs. Stand the pie on a small baking tin and push it into a slack oven to cook for forty-five minutes, then bestrew with sugar, and leave to glaze in a hot oven. Instead of egging the pie may be simply moistened with water and lightly covered with powdered sugar.

Rhubarb Pie.—Select fine tender stalks of rhubarb. Remove the leaves, wash and peel the stalks, then cut them up transversely in pieces three-quarters of an inch long; arrange these in layers in a pie dish intermingled with sugar, and cover and finish the same as the above apple or peach pies.